Published on Jul 5, 2001
I rediscovered religion the other day.
You see, I was listening to
Lost In Rock from Canvas, and within five minutes of pushing
“play,” I found myself on my knees, begging God to blow out my
eardrums so I wouldn’t have to listen to another note. Regrettably,
my prayer was not answered, and I quickly re-lost the faith. After
all, a merciful God wouldn’t all for such a wretched album to have
been created in the first place, much less allow me to listen to
it.
Lost In Rock is a terrible album. I mean, there’s no nice
way to put it. This is scrape-off-the-bottom-of-your-shoe bad. This
is play-loud-to-break-your-lease bad. This is
music-to-commit-suicide-by bad. Some of the screeching vocal lines
sound like the moment in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Christopher Lloyd reveals he’s
the Toon who killed Eddie Valiant’s brother. Remember that cartoon
voice, and how it could shatter glass? ‘Nuff said.
The band – Gareth Brown, Karl Fieldhouse, Daniel Kearns, Andy
Sutcliffe and John Sutcliffe – show that absolutely no thought was
put into this album. From the almost nonexistent cover art to the
instrumented noise that takes up 62 minutes of time that could have
been otherwise well-spent – masturbating to pictures of the bearded
lady at the circus while wearing a barbed wire glove, for example –
this disc is an audio portrait of what the D.T.s is like.
Musically, the problem wth Canvas is that they don’t know what
kind of a band they want to be – thrash metal, ambient rock,
alternative, or pop. So, they throw it all together, with the same
kind of chemistry that goes into making high explosives. The only
difference is that the ten songs on
Lost In Rock blow up not only in the band’s face, but in the
listeners’. Tracks like “Black Shape Of The Nexus (Mk. 2),” “Hail
The Sky” and “The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters” are prime
examples of what happens when a band not only doesn’t do their
homework, but they go into the recording studio without a clue as
to what they’re going to play.
Admittedly, by the time
Lost In Rock eventually gets to “The Canvas Of Your Love,”
the 12-minute closing piece, things start to fall in place – but by
then the damage has already been done, and nothing – not even
Yahweh Himself – could save this disc.
Lost In Rock is the kind of disc which makes me want to call
Brian Slagel over at Metal Blade and ask him, “What the hell were
you
thinking when you released this disc?” Canvas is living
proof that not every band in existence should be offered a record
deal.
2001 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
Prosthetic / Metal Blade Records, and is used for informational
purposes only.